Tornado damages daycare and homes

SOUTH BEND, Ind. –

Sundays EF2 tornado and its 125 mile an hour winds ripped through Growing Kids Learning Center on Ireland Road in South Bend.

It left the daycare heavily damaged and knocked down power lines in the area, shutting down Ireland Road Monday.

Decaro Scott, a mom of three girls who attend Growing Kids Learning Center, went out to look at the damage.

“They were really sad last night,” said Scott.

The daycare now stands with parts of its roof torn off and half the building collapsed. i

 “They’re there more than they’re with me most of the time,” said Scott. “I mean it’s their second home, so it took a toll on them a little bit.”

Scott says the girls lost some personal belongings in the tornado damage as well, like the blankets they left at the daycare and other crafts they made.

It’s also now disrupting Scott’s daily schedule.

“I had to take off work today because I have no one to keep them today,” she said. “It’s a challenge and we’ll just have to get through it.”

Some of the debris from the daycare was blown up into neighboring homes, including near Marissa Hohl’s home. Hohl works at that Growing Kids Learning Center location, but today was spent cleaning up her yard instead of walking to work.

“Picking up all the debris and right now it’s just cutting up the trees. Putting them in a pile. Figuring it out from there,” said Hohl. “Just shocking, overwhelming.”

That’s an emotion Scott is feeling as well.

“A little overwhelmed but it’ll all fall into place at some point,” she said.

Still, those impacted are working to find the silver lining. Hohl says its her community.

“We had random strangers driving through the neighborhood wondering what happened, checking if everybody was okay and it’s nice to know that we do have a community out here like that,” she said.